Working Group on the Biology and Assessment of Deep-sea Fisheries Resources (WGDEEP)

The ICES working group on biology and assessment of deep-sea fisheries resources (WGDEEP) provides scientific advice on 29 assessment units including stocks of deep-water species and those on shelf areas and in deep waters. Advice is provided every other year for each stock, except for stocks from ICES Division 5.a (Iceland) with annual advice. First draft of advice was prepared for 13 stocks. Due to the Covid 19 disruption, the meeting was conducted entirely by web-based correspondence. Available time-series for international landings and discards, fishing effort, survey indices and biological information were updated for all stocks and are presented in Sections 4–15 of the report.

Due to Covid 19 complications in 2020 there was no survey in Azores ICES division 10a, which affected the assessment of blackspot seabream. Also, there was not a full spatial coverage in the Norwegian slope survey and this to some extend affected the assessment of greater silver smelt in ICES areas 1, 2, 3a and 4.

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